The Patriotic Genius of Family Ties

Gary David Goldberg died this past weekend, just short of his 69th birthday, of a brain tumor. For anyone under the age of, say, 45, this sad news might raise a question: Gary David who?

This is a shame. Goldberg was one of America's great comedy writers, a contributor to "M*A*S*H" and "The Bob Newhart Show," creator of the political spoof "Spin City." His greatest achievement, however, was "Family Ties," the 1980s sitcom that remains one of the best TV comedies ever made.

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"Family Ties" cast a young Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton, a money-obsessed, ultra-conservative kid born to devotedly liberal parents—a miniature Gordon Gekko in a middle-class commune. This was the show's punch line. Alex didn't fit in. He wore monogrammed sweaters and swore allegiance to Ronald Reagan (reportedly a big fan of the show). He was given to saying things like: "People who have money don't need people." In one episode, he lectured a roomful of toddlers on taxes: "A terrible, hairy, liberal monster."

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Mom: Alex was offended by our political magazines and ripped them up.

Alex: You have no proof.

Mom: Yes we do. We found your rattle on the floor next to the evidence.

Alex: It could have been [his sister] Mallory's.

Mom: It was your Nixon rattle.

This was a typical joke, played out via countless permutations during the show's eight-year run. "Do you think maybe he was switched at birth and the Rockefellers have our kid?" asked the dad. In the show's last episode, with Alex about to leave home to go work in a New York investment bank, he shakes his father's hand and says: "Goodbye, dad. Remember, you still owe me $74.50." Then there was this exchange, which perfectly summed up the show's essential premise:

Alex: The '60s are over, dad.

Dad: Thanks for the tip.

"Family Ties" first came to American screens in 1982, a year after Reagan became president, a time when the liberalism of the 1960s and '70s had finally imploded. Alex represented the new wave. He was young, brash, unwavering in his self-belief. His ex-hippie parents—well-meaning, peripheral—represented what was being left behind. In this sense, the show was a reflection of the American political landscape of the time—in all but one important detail.

Inevitably, a Christmas episode of the show (1983) presented an update of the Dickens classic, with Alex in the role of Scrooge. At the end, humbled, the boy rushes out to buy gifts for the family. Unable to find any stores open except a 7-Eleven, he returns home with a cup of coffee, a TV Guide, a six-pack of cough syrup. It's a funny, sweet moment, and it captures an element of "Family Ties" that helped elevate it from diversion to something more important: No matter how much we sympathized with the parents, it was Alex we loved.

The early 1980s—more so than now, perhaps—was a time of apparently unbridgeable political division. The truly remarkable thing about "Family Ties" is that, while presenting us with outsized representatives of both camps, it never once took sides. The butt of the joke was not conservatism or liberalism, but the ideological divide itself. And within this fact was a promise of reconciliation. The Liz Lemon/Jack Donaghy dynamic on the late 30 Rock carries a similar promise, but for the most part, today, partisan warriors are content to lob bombs from either side of the barricade; Goldberg's aim was to tear that barricade down.

In the end, this was not a story about what separates people, but about what binds them (look at the title). Given this starting point, it took a deft hand to ensure that audiences laughed rather than gagged. But Goldberg—aided by the flawless delivery of his cast members—had a knack for making even the sappiest of sentiments seem sardonic. Above all else, the show was unflaggingly, brilliantly funny.

In one episode, trying to wriggle his way out of doing household chores, Alex launches into a lengthy, mock-schmaltzy monologue about how, as the firstborn son, he will always enjoy a special bond with his mother. Mom's response is to roll her eyes and tell him to get on with his chores. "The bond stretches," Alex says, undaunted, "but it never breaks."